A prior art bottle manufacturing apparatus has, as shown in FIGS. 12 and 13, a blow mold 1 composed of a pair of separate and movable mold parts 2a and 2b and a bottom plate 3 held between the bottom portions of said mold parts. The bottom plate 3 is mounted on a bracket 6 mounted on a body 5 of the bottle manufacturing apparatus, and the bracket 6 is slidable in the up and down direction quided by a slide-holding mechanism 4 such as a dovetail groove. Reference numeral 7 designates a threaded shaft for driving the bracket 6 and shaft 7 is rotatably mounted on said body 5 of the apparatus. Reference numeral 8 designates an operating shaft extending at right angles to the shaft 7, reference numeral 9 designating a rotating driving mechanism comprising a worm, a worm gear and the like for transmitting the rotation of said operating shaft 8 to the threaded shaft 7.
Reference numeral 10 designates an air cylinder slidably mounted on said body 5 of the apparatus for movement in the up and down direction, and a support member 11 is fixedly mounted on the cylinder 10 and extends upwardly therefrom, said support member 11 being provided with a supporting shaft 12 extending transversely thereto, and a tong arm 13 is pivoted on said supporting shaft 12 at one end portion thereof. This assembly is a take-out mechanism 14 for taking a bottle A molded in said blow mold 1 out of the blow mold 1.
Said tong arm 13 is provided with a tong head 16 rotatably mounted on a shaft 15 at the other end thereof from shaft 12, and a chain 18 extends around a sprocket wheel 17a fixedly mounted on said supporting shaft 12 and a sprocket wheel 17b supported by the shaft 15 and on which the tong head 16 is fixedly mounted. A gear 19 is fixedly mounted on the tong arm 13. A rack 20 is engaged with the gear 19 and is moved up and down by means of a piston 10a in said air cylinder 10. Tongs 21 are mounted on the tong head 16 and adapted to grip a mouth portion of the bottle A molded in the blow mold 1 and then to release it.
Reference numeral 22 designates a threaded shaft engaged with the air cylinder 10 and rotatable on said body 5 of the apparatus. An operating shaft 24 drives the threaded shaft 22 through a rotary driving mechanism 25 comprising a worm, a worm gear and the like. A conveyor device 26 transfers a molded bottle away from beneath the take-out mechanism 14.
With the above described construction, upon finishing the molding of the bottle in the blow mold 1, the rack 20 is moved down by means of the piston 10a in the air cylinder 10 to rotate the gear 19 counterclockwise. Since the gear 19 is fixedly mounted on the tong arm 13, the tong arm 13, which normally has the free end over the conveyor 26, is rotated by about 180.degree. so that the free end is over blow mold 1. At this time, since the supporting shaft 12 is not rotated, the sprocket wheel 17a fixedly mounted on the supporting shaft 12 holds the sprocket wheel 17b together with the tong head 16 in the same direction as shown in FIG. 12 by the chain 18, and the tong head 16 is moved to a position above the mold 1, and the mouth portion of the bottle A is gripped between the tongs 21 thereof.
Subsequently, the piston 10a of the air cylinder 10 is driven to turn the gear 19 in the reverse direction by means of the rack 20 to move the tong arm 13 to the position above the conveyor 26, and the bottle between the tongs 21 is released and placed on the conveyor device 26.
In the event that the blow mold 1 is changed to change the kind of bottle to be manufactured, the bottom plate 3 of the new blow mold 1 is mounted on the bracket 6. The operating shaft 8 is rotated to move the bracket 6 up or down, thereby adjusting the height of the bottom plate 3 so as to be suitable for the mold parts 2a and 2b. In addition, the threaded shaft 22 is rotated by means of operating shaft 24 to move the air cylinder 10 up or down, thereby adjusting the height of the tongs 21 so it is suitable for holding the mouth portion of the different bottle A molded in the blow mold 1.
Thus it will be seen that it is necessary to adjust the heights of both the bottom plate 3 and the tongs 21 according to the kind of blow mold 1 when the blow mold 1 is changed in the bottle manufacturing apparatus, and that they have been adjusted by directly rotating the operating shafts 8 and 24 for adjusting the heights of both the bottom plate 3 and the tongs 21. This rotation has heretofore been performed by an operator separately using a tool, such as a spanner, or a nut runner or the like. The height of the bottom plate 3 has been set visually in relation to the mold parts 2a and 2b, while the height of the tongs 21 is visually set so as to be suitable for holding the mouth portion of the bottle A. Moreover, the operating shafts 8 and 24 are positioned at an end portion of the bottle manufacturing apparatus and the conveyor device 26 is positioned over the operating shafts 8 and 24.
Accordingly, in order to rotate the operating shafts 8 and 24, it is necessary for the operator to enter the space under the conveyor device 26, so that the working conditions are bad and the positions of the bottom plate 3 and the tongs 21 are difficult to observe. Thus, a problem occurs in that the adjusting of the heights of bottom plate 3 and the tongs 21 takes a considerably long time. Moreover, since it is necessary for the operating shafts 8 and 24 to be rotated separately for every different blow mold 1, in a bottle manufacturing apparatus in which a large number of different blow molds 1 are used, because it takes a considerably long time to adjust the heights of the bottom plate 3 and the take-out mechanism 14, it takes a long time to exchange molds in the bottle manufacturing apparatus.